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notions of him. I immediately perceive, that God, in speaking of himself, hath proportioned his language to the weakness of men, to whom he hath addressed his word. In this view, I meet with no difficulty in explaining those passages in which God saith, he hath hands or feet, eyes or heart, he goeth or cometh, ascendeth or descendeth, he is in some cases pleased, and in others provoked.

Yet, methinks, it would be a strange abuse of this notion of scripture, not to understand some constant ideas literally; ideas which the scriptures give us of God, and on which the system of christianity partly rests..

I perceive, and I think very clearly, that the scriptures constantly speak of a being, a person, or, if I may speak so, a portion of the divine essence, which is called the Father, and another that is called the Son:

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I think, I perceive with equal evidence in the same book, that between these two persons, the Father and the Son, there is the closest and most intimate union that can be imagined. What love must there be between these two persons, who have the same perfections and the same ideas, the same purposes and the same plans? What love must subsist between two persons, whose union is not interrupted by any calamity without, by any passion within, or, to speak more fully still, by any imagination?

With equal clearness I perceive, that the man Jesus, who was born at Bethlehem, and was laid in a manger, was in the closest union with the word, that is, with the Son of God; and that in virtue of this union the man Jesus is more beloved of God than all the other creatures of the universe.

No less clearly do I perceive in scripture, that the man Jesus, who is as closely united to the eter

nal word, as the word is to God, was delivered for me, a vile creature, to the most ignominious treatment, to sufferings the most painful, and the most shameful, that were inflicted on the meanest and basest of mankind.

And when I inquire the cause of this great mys tery, when I ask, Why did the almighty God bestow so rich a present on me? Especially, when I apply to revelation for an explication of this mystery, which reason cannot fully explain, I can find no other cause than the compassion of God.

Let the schools take their way, let reason lose itself in speculations, yea, let faith find it difficult to submit to a doctrine, which hath always appeared with an awful solemnity to those who havė thought and meditated on it; for my part, I abide by this clear and astonishing, but, at the same time, this kind and comfortable proposition, God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son. When people shew us Jesus Christ in the garden, sweating great drops of blood; when they speak of his trial before Caiaphas and Pilate, in which he was interrogated, insulted and scourged; when they present him to our view on mount Calvary, nailed to a cross, and bowing beneath the blows of heaven and earth; when they require the reason of these formidable and surprizing phonomena, we will answer, It is because God loved mankind; it is because God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son.

2. The patience that God exerciseth towards sinners, is our second remark. Here, my brethren, I wish, that as many of you as are interested in this article would allow me to omit particulars, and would recollect the histories of your own lives.

My life, says one, is consumed in perpetual indolence. I am a stranger to the practice of private

devotion, and, to speak the truth, I consider it only as a fancy. I attend public worship, only because I would conform to example and custom. I hear the sermons of the ministers of the gospel as amusive discourses, that treat of subjects in which I have no interest. I take no part in the prayers that are addressed to God in behalf of the sick or the poor, the church or the state.

I, saith a second, ever since I have been in the world, have cherished one of the most shameful and criminal passions; sometimes I have been shocked at its turpitude, and sometimes I have resolved to free myself from it: in some of my sicknesses, which, I thought, would have ended in death, I determined on a sincere conversion: sometimes a sermon, or a pious book, hath brought me to selfexamination, which hath ended in a promise of reformation: sometimes the sight of the Lord's supper, an institution properly adapted to display the sinfulness of sin, hath exhibited my sin in all its heinousness, and hath bound me by oath to sacrifice my unworthy passion to God. But my corruption hath been superior to all, and yet God hath borne with me to this day.

A third must say, As for me, I have lived thirty or forty years in a country where the public profession of religion is prohibited, and I have passed all the time without a membership to any church, without ordinances, without public worship, and without the hope of a pastor to comfort me in my dying illness; I have seduced my family by my example; I have consented to the settlement of my children, and have suffered them to contract marriages without the blessing of heaven; my lukewarmness hath caused first their indifference, and last their apostacy, and will perhaps cause and yet God hath borne with me to this day.

Why hath he borne with me? It is not a connivance at sin, for he hates and detests it. It is not ignorance, for he penetrates the inmost recesses of my soul, nor hath a single act, no not a single act, of my rebellion, eluded the search of his all-piercing eye. It is not a want of power to punish a criminal, for he holds the thunders in his mighty hands; at his command hell opens, and the fallen angels wait only for his permission to seize their prey. Why then do I yet subsist? Why do I see the light of this day? Why are the doors of this church once more open to me? It is because he commiserates poor sinners. It is because he pitieth me as a father pitieth his children.

3. Let us remark the crimes which God pardoneth. There is no sin excepted, no not one, in the list of those which God hath promised to forgive to true penitents. He pardoneth not only the sins of those whom he hath not called into his visible church, who, not having been indulged with this kind of benefits, have not had it in their power to carry ingratitude to its heighth: but he pardoneth also crimes committed under such dispensations as seem to render sin least pardonable; he pardoneth sins committed under the dispensation of the law, as he forgiveth those which are committed under the dispensation of nature; and those that are committed under the dispensation of the gospel, as those which are committed under the law. He forgiveth, not only such sins as have been committed through ignorance, infirmity, and inadvertency, but such also as have been committed deliberately, and obstinately. He not only forgiveth the sins of a day, a week, or a month, but he forgiveth also the sins of a great number of years, those which have been formed into an inveterate habit, and have grown old with the sinner. Though your sins be as scar

let, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool, Isa. i. 18.

But what am I saying? It is not enough to say that God forgiveth sins, he unites himself to those who have committed them by the most tender and affectionate ties.

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4. Our next article therefore regards the familiar friendship to which God invites us. What intimate, close, and affectionate relation canst thou imagine, which God is not willing to form with thee in religion? Art thou affected with the vigilance of a shepherd, who watcheth over, and sacrificeth all his care, and even his life for his flock? This relation God will have with thee: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters, Psal. xxiii. 1, 2. Art thou affected with the confidence of a friend, who openeth his heart to his friend, and communicates to him his most secret thoughts, dividing with him all his pleasures and all his pains? God will have this relation with thee: The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, Psal. xxv. 14. Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do? Gen. xviii, 17. I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth: but I have called you friends: for all things that I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you. John xv. 15. Art thou touched with the tenderness of a mother, whose highest earthly happiness is to suckle the son of her womb? God will have this relation with thee: Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee, Isa. xlix. 15.

Hast thou some good reasons for disgust with human connections? Are thy views so liberal and de

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